Social Science Library
Project: Social Science Library
Architects: Celestino García Braña
Date: 1997-2001
Location: South Campus
The new Social Science Library occupies a lot on the periphery of the South Campus, near the Os Feáns neighbourhood. Facing the organic plan of the streets close to the university area, the building reveals its objective of introducing order by orienting its façades in parallel to the orthogonal lines present in the layout of the entire Campus. The library is a compact volume, with a strong presence highlighted by its exterior pieces of granite inserted into vertical steel guides. Inside, a series of long, narrow rectangular courtyards appear at different heights, in order to let light into the base, where the reading rooms are located. These courtyards introduce interesting visual relationships into the interior of the large prism of the library, generating a high degree of spatial richness.
The curious layout of the reading rooms, at the base of the building, with the entire deposit of books located on upper floors, corresponds to the criterion of making it easy to adapt the building's usage to new needs and future changes. This functional solution reduces the length of the corridors and enables technical realignments without affecting the building's users.
The library was designed with bioclimatic criteria, introducing large openings facing north, which provides ideal light for reading, and reducing the number of windows facing south, in order to minimise air-conditioning needs.
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Social Science Library
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